10 Signs You’re A Citizen Of The Internet

Last post, I talked about being ‘from the internet’. This post, I’m going to talk about how you can tell whether or not you’re a patriot of the world wide web or just a tourist :)

You’re on more than four social media sites.
I know perfectly normal people (not denizens of the Net) who are on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, maybe a blog or deviantART or something. Not usually all of them. When you’re on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, WordPress, Blogger, deviantART, G+, LinkedIn, Pinterest… you get the idea. You might have a problem.

You know computer code.
Obviously, techies have to know computer code, but if your job doesn’t involve programming and you can still write a web page in html or make a game in Python, you’re likely to be slightly Internet addicted. Admit it.

You occasionally write notes in code without meaning too.
Physics cover lesson? Private study? Research for dissertation? Whatever it is, you’re sitting there writing about a process and how to tell the difference and you accidentally write it as an ‘If… Else’ structure. Or you put your title in < em > tags. We’ve all done it … right?

You own a website.
Bonus points if you’ve got a custom domain name, you built the site yourself (e.g. with html or flash), or you’ve owned it since before 2000.

You occasionally use internet words or phrases in real life in a non-ironic way.
Like saying ‘lol’ instead of laughing, ‘screenshot’ when someone makes a stupid face, ‘gpoy’ instead of ‘That’s totally me! I’m the same’… I could continue, but I don’t need to.

When you experience something amusing you immediately begin to calculate how you would turn that into a blog post, video, or equivalent.

You imitate Tumblr gifs or memes to make your friends laugh.
Bonus points if you can make them laugh even though they’re not Tumblr users and never saw the original.

You spend upwards of two hours on the internet for non-work purposes.

When people ask for your contact details, you’re unsure whether they want your phone number or your Twitter handle / YouTube username / web address.
I generally play safe and give them all of them.

You know more people on the internet than you do in real life and refer to them as your friends.
You know – “My friend Mike said blah but I think Jim’s right…” “Who’s Mike?” “Oh, my friend from New Zealand.” “Ah. How’d you know them?” “Well, they’re from the internet really, but…”

So there we have it. If these are looking horribly familiar, you may be from the internet. Don’t worry. We really don’t mind. It’s much easier to find you that way.

Have I missed anything? I’m sure there are nice normal people who meet a few of these criteria; equally, I’m sure gamers or users of that part of the internet (not my division) will have other things to add.

But seriously, when you find yourself on the Spork Room chat on Christmas Day… let’s just say that was when I realised what I’ve become.

Tumblr is where I got all the funky graphics for my Sherlock post, mainly ;)
Python is a computer language, one of the simplest there is. I once used it to build a program that solved simultaneous equations, then forgot to save the program and had to do my maths homework by hand, damn it.
‘gpoy’ – Tumblr slang, ‘gratuitous picture of yourself’, basically meaning something that shows your own feelings or thoughts or whatever very accurately.
The Spork Room is a forum :D

I agree with Mark. I know you hate math, but if you don’t do it, you can’t learn it. and learning it and understanding it are somewhat important… though anything above Algebra is icing unless you go into a science degree that requires higher math. :}

Though on the other hand, writing a program to do that is cool. I once wrote a program in which you would input your bithdate and todays date and it would tell you exactly how old you were and how long it was till your birthday – or if it was your birthday it would print ‘happy Birthday’ on the screne… I too did not save the program or the code, but I can find soem of my notes on teh look up tables I made to make it all work… that’s when I discovered that I can think like a computer. :}

Correction. I don’t like numbers or letters pretending to be numbers and the effort of working out how they work (when they do not, after all, exist in a concrete manner) gives me a headache.

Numbers and letters are the same thing. 5 is just a shorthand way of writing five. :-)

How can numbers not exist in a concrete manner? They’re no different from words or letters. Just markings on a page, or vibrations in the air. Both exist only at our whim. Both are artificial creations, and our lifestyles could not exist without them.

Letters pretending to be numbers – i.e., 5n + 8m = 17j. Yes, I KNOW that equation doesn’t work!
Numbers don’t exist. 1 + 1 only equals 2 because we decided it does. I know it’s the same for everything, but I understand how languages happened, I don’t understand how maths happened. Well, I understand how adding and stuff happened, but algebra and trig and differentiation? Just … h-how?

Maths happened because of the human need to understand the world. The history of mathematics is a wondrous subject.

Algebra, as the name suggests, was developed by the Arabs to work with unknown quantities. Differential calculus was invented by Isaac Newton because the existing mathematics could not account for the orbits of the planets.

Pioneers like Maxwell worked out the existence of impossible concepts like radio waves purely through mathematical reasoning. That continues to this day. Seemingly pointless pure maths later turns out to have incredible practical applications that change the world.

The universe exists according to mathematical laws. The planets orbit the sun according to the oh so simple inverse square law. At every level, from distant galaxies to quantum physics, from multi-dimensional universes to the computer chip, maths is the key to our existence.

And what finer example of a mathematical equation in all its beauty and power then e=mc-squared?

For a Doctor Who fan you show a remarkably callous disregard for the reality behind the fiction. Blame your teachers, then watch out for our maths guides in 2013! Better still. come and co-write one with us. :-)

1) I think so, though I’m more active on some than others. Can we count Protagonize? And does being a Mod for a social site, give you bonus points. :}

2) I know some. Then again I had a required class in Fortran 77 (a language I don’t think is used at all any more) in university.

3) So far have only used it outside of the net when typing up a post for the net.

4) No, but my hubby does. He used to own one for me but forgot to pay for it one year and someone took my domain name. Though I wouldn’t be doing what the name implied it would have been nice to give Creative Attire over to my mom for her seamstressing.

5) I’ve said woot out loud, but I don’t know about lol or other internet languages. I may have used imo at some point though.

6) Not unless I see it on the net. I’ve gotten a couple blog posts that way. :}

7) Nope. Not on tumblr, don’t really need another time sink. :}

8) Um.. yes unless you count my writing as work, since I am trying to make a pseudo second career out of it, in that case no. :}

9) Normally I’m torn between phone and e-mail. My daughter asks for phone numbers. Then again she’s 6 with no e-mail account or phone of her own.

10) Well You and Charley fit that bill very nicely.. whether I know more people that way, I’m not sure. I talk to Charley so much my kids love to say hi to her… back when they took naps on the weekends. Their not taking naps has severly handicapped my internet social time. :}

So what do you think? I’m going to say I have a vacation home on the Internet that I visit frequently. :}

1. Nope. Social media is so mainstream. WordPress doesn’t count…
2. Not really. A little bit here and there. About equivalent to my understanding of Slovak. Probably a bit less.
3. That made me laugh. No, not really. Though I do occasionally write in Elder Futhark Runes.
4. LOL NO! I’m totez poor. Hence the socialism.
5. See above.
6. Meh. Depends what mood I’m in.
7. No, I have a friend that does that already. Don’t want to steal his shtick. (Yiddish again!)
8. Sometimes. Though I have a loose definition of “work”
9. I’m inherently private, so I usually attempt to deflect via a quick comment, or flee in paranoid angst.
10. I got a few people I call friends on here. But more people I meet face to face.

I’m going to have to rate myself, since this seems to be what everyone is doing and I’m a sucker for this sort of thing.
1. Nope. Twitter, Tumblr, and WordPress only.
2. Hardly. I can just make things bold, italicized, etc. when writing comments.
3. This has never happened to me.
4. No. I can’t afford it and even if I was a billionaire, I wouldn’t know where to begin.
5. Yes, this has happened to me.
6. Sometimes. Usually I just debate whether or not to make it a chat post on Tumblr.
7. Oh yes. My friends and I are basically Tumblr translated into real life.
8. Um…*nervous laugh*…maybe. (Yes.)
9. I just communicate with people via email.
10. I’d say my ratio of Internet friends to real-life friends is about even.
Ah, and before I forget: I know you told me to assume that you’d be participating in every TCWT blog chain, but I’d just like to confirm that you’d like to be included for April. Shall I sign you up?